Birds, food, music

I will wait until next week to send more video links of our music. Those are still not all processed. We now have through 15, and I left off at 3. Below, you’ll see the corrections to #2 and #3, which were labeled incorrectly with wrong links.

Photo of our holiday brunch, above a photo of some of the Quail having their own lunch of Black Oil Sunflower seeds. They are on a 5 foot high “table” just out from our kitchen window.

One can see the brush pile at the end of the driveway, a good hiding place for the quail.

Monday, Nov 12

I went to SAIL exercise class today and by a gal’s “farm” to take some egg cartons and drop off a pot of Hens and Chicks. She introduced me to her hens, only 5 months old who are all named and friendly, and gave me a dozen small eggs.

Tuesday, Nov 13

I had a call at 8:30 a.m. from Lacey at Cle Elum that my referral had been sent. I called at 9:20 to report that to the KVC hospital Cardiopulmonary unit where I have to take my Pulmonary Function Test, and they worked me in today. It took awhile to get it processed, because of protocol and referral complications electronically, but thanks to Vanessa here at the hospital and Lacey at the other end working together, it was accomplished and she called me to tell me I could come in today at 2:30. I did, and had Jim Allen (man in charge of the department) for my technician. He’s been in this part of the medical profession for over 30 years.

On my way to check in, I checked my numbers at Bi-Mart, dropped off a donation check for six turkeys at the Community Thanksgiving Dinner, to Katrina, the director of the Ellensburg AAC (Senior Center), one of the major groups putting on the annual celebration for our town. Several of us will go directly from playing music at Hearthstone, Wednesday, next week, to participate in the dinner, starting at 3:30.

Then I went to the hospital and home by one more stop, not getting home until almost 4:00.

I continued working on finishing up the Google Photo link to all the photos taken last Friday, Nov. 9 at the AAC.

We have eaten, I have showered, and now am uploading the photos.

But I have to get to bed soon, because we must leave by 8:30 a.m. for our first meeting in town tomorrow at 9:00.

Wednesday, Nov 14

Today was a long day. Started early to be ready to be out for town in two separate cars. Because of the icy rain we left about 8:20 and drove a little slower than usual. We needed to be there in time to set the table and be ready to roll.

I had started assembling my lunch salad with John’s help last night cubing smoked turkey breast and an apple, and I put the lettuce into a bowl, but waited until this morning to add Blue Cheese dressing and mixed it all up. I neglected to put in my bag of Cheez-its for my croutons, so went without.

Our first meeting was at Hearthstone, with a bunch of retired Geography professors and I invited two guests who I knew would be interested in the main topic of discussion. They are sisters who are residents there: Gloria Swanson and Shirley Strong. Geographers and sidekicks who came included Ken Hammond (Jo), Dee Eberhart (daughter Cory), Jim Huckabay (Diane), Lillian Brooks – now a resident there, and John and me. The management (Laurie) provided coffee and tea bags, and I retrieved hot water and Hot Chocolate mix from the adjacent room. Lillian brought her nice creamer in a bottle, not powder.

I brought some crispy cookies (probably harder than they should have been, so I won’t choose them again). Guess we should have made Chocolate Chip cookies, or brownies, or something different. I had pretty plates with balloons on them and napkins with colored balloons to cheer people.

From there I intended to go to the Food Bank, but it was 11:10, and I saw as I was 4 blocks from Hearthstone, that my tire pressure warning light was on, so I called John and told him I was going to Les Schwab to have them checked. He said he would meet me there. They found all four tires were each 5 lbs. low. Supposed to be 29 in the front and 30 in the back. They added air pressure and off I went (I knew the warning light would take a few blocks to turn off, and it did).

John left me and went by the hardware store for a special deal on a few bags of Black Oil Sunflower Seeds. Even our small birds like them, but John also got some other seeds for them.

Once I got to the Food Bank, I had to park a small walk from the building where I usually park, but I did stop and leave my violin and bags of stuff inside the building and then went back to move my car. As I was entering the building it started raining again. It rained hard while we were inside. But, thankfully, it stopped by the time I left.

From there on to the AAC for SAIL exercise. I used the facilities to check my email and got all checked in for class. We went the entire hour, and I came home.

John was receiving hay and helping unload bales when I got here. He got 90 bales today, and will get more tomorrow.

I worked on some music I needed to fix for the audience tomorrow, and continued working on computer needs. Also washed a load of dishes. I guess I’m going to have to do a load of clothes soon.

Tomorrow is another full day. I have to play music at Pacifica, and meet John in town (I don’t have time to carry my violin home), to be back by 4:00 for a lecture by two geographer friends, Elaine Glenn and Sterling Quinn (on Israel and Brasilia trips they took this summer), given for Geography Awareness Week. Then we’ll go by BK for a couple of Crispy Chicken sandwiches and fries, on our way to the Kittitas Audubon monthly meeting. I’m going to video the speaker so I need to be there early. Helps to be there by 6:30 to assure a front row seat.

Thursday, Nov 15

We ended up having the largest number of players ever, come to Pacifica today, fifteen.

We had 90 more bales of hay delivered at 11:00 a.m. today. I left before 1:00 for town.

John drove in to meet me at 3:30 at Grocery Outlet because I have the parking sticker to park behind Dean Hall on campus; otherwise, it costs $5.00 to park. We are attending a lecture by Elaine Glenn and Sterling Quinn on Israel and Brasilia at 4:00 p.m.

This was a family affair. Elaine Glenn presented first on Israel and Palestine with her husband there for support.

From there, we moved my car down to the Ellensburg Library, to leave it while John and I went in his for our supper. I had wrapped my violin in two coats to help it make it through the long cold stay in the car. I should have just brought it inside to the last stop, especially because that went so long from 3:10 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

We made it back to the Kittitas Audubon meeting way early, so I went into the library and used their computers. I learned that having a library card is now free. Previously for 20+ years, one was not available to us, because we are not in the city limits, even though our mailing address is Ellensburg, WA. Nice to know that’s no longer the case. I wonder if that also applies to the City Swimming Pool entry. We still cannot vote in City Council or other city elections, but we do pay taxes to the schools because, while in town, the districts are not the same as the EBRG boundary.

Our next meeting was the Kittitas Audubon Chapter’s General meeting with the normal stuff (passing around dead birds), and various announcements, and finally, a presentation by Joe Buchanan on a study of Short-eared Owls in the Western states.

They are seen widely, but not much is known about how many there are, nor if the numbers are up, down, or steady.Photos from The Cornell Lab of Ornithology: All About Birds

I don’t know what happened to the time today, but it evaporated.
I did spend time with paying bills, and working on email, and calling a couple of people, considered going to town, but decided I had too much to finish at home than to take several hours away. I was able to get some paperwork ready for next week’s medical visit (annual physical), and to arrange a note to our paper deliverer and make a comment to the regional manager of circulation for the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, I got the cost for the hay we were buying and I had to write a check today because this, the 3rd delivery with 95 bales, is the last for this year. Previously, in the past 2 days, we had 90 bales, and then yesterday, 95. John had to help unload it because Mario could not get a helper. I wrote the check, and we should be good through next October. After helping with the hay, John stayed out to get some things ready for winter – arriving this coming Wed or Thur, as rain or ice. He intends to cover the strawberries with mulched leaves, by Monday.

I left cat food out tonight, and a raccoon just visited. John heard it crunching next to the window he sits near, thought it was our cat, Czar, but looked out and saw a black nose, and then shooed her/him off. The blinds were down so the raccoon didn’t see him sitting there by the window. It was only 8:30 p.m., but mostly we have all the food brought in by then. Need to improve our timing.

Saturday, Nov 17

I was up early to feed the cat and went back to bed and slept in. I should have put my computer on sending up a video, taken Thursday, which is going to take much of the day. I still have more to send. The one going now is on my Nikon camera, which is much higher resolution, and requires much more bandwidth. I prefer using my old camera, Exilim, which goes up faster. Still it is not as fast as people using their Smartphones on a T mobile carrier.

I must get ready and go to Briarwood today. We expect to have 10 players, a big bunch!

I went to Briarwood, and was surprised by the large last minute turnout. We had 12 folks present: Roberta, Tim, Charlotte, Amy, Dean, Nancy, Charlie, Gerald, Kevin, Marilyn, Maury, and Haley. We had a nice large audience as well, and they fed us well. We had a great hot soup (two bean types & ground beef), with a roll & butter or saltine crackers. A table full of desserts (cookies – several varieties: peanut butter, corn flakes sugar, frosted sugar cookies with green & orange frosting in the shape of a pumpkin), some other crispy cookies (almond, caramel, gingerbread), Raspberry Jell-O with cut grapes and apples, a pumpkin cake, cheesecake with cherry pie topping and whipped cream on top, if wanted. I think that’s all.

Here is Lee Kiesel, our awesome organizer, taking the tops off the delicacies to be served. Out of sight is the hot apple cider and the hot soup, rolls, butter, and saltines over on the counter and another table. It was quite the spread, and I needed no supper tonight. Our harmonica & singer, Dean is standing behind. She is planning for December 15, a Christmas Buffet. That will be something special.

I don’t know all the things John did today in my absence, but one of them involves our old Pace Arrow motorhome, which no longer runs. He made wood boxes to fit over the busted vents in the roof, and is considering creating an entrance through the side front window to allow the feral cats (Woody especially, and maybe her mom Sue, and also Czar) access to inside from the weather and to have food, water, and a closed space above freezing.

I did bring home some cookies to share from Briarwood today. We’ll have them for dessert and go to bed. I stayed up until late to finish sending a video from Thursday afternoon to YouTube. I still have two 10-minute ones to send up, but thankfully from a different camera, so it should not take over 2 hours. This went until midnight.

Sunday, Nov 18

Nothing on the schedule today except finish the blog and get to the record-keeping. In order to complete the blog, I had to upload two more videos to YouTube, and that took much of the morning, slowly down the response time of our computers.

We did sneak in a brunch with eggs, sausage, toast, and pears.

I do need to go over my paperwork (labs, PFT test, questions about refill directions). I have my meds printed out as a table because I don’t wish to package all of them in their little bottles, as requested. Get Dr. Wood to write me a referral for a PFT this time next year, now. I just had one this week. Talk to him about increasing the dosage to 10 mg hydrocodone + 325 Acetaminophen. Ask for an interpretation of Hiatal Hernia in my Chest x-rays in March 2018, after the first for Pneumonia, by Rob Merkel, and more follow-up on Thyroid tests annually from a medication I’m on (and the reason for the Pulmonary Fctn test.

Our sister Peggy called from Ohio and we had a nice conversation for 45 min., but both our phones were almost out of battery, when we hung up. When her phone call originally came, John was walking out the door with the dog, but luckily he heard the ring and came back. The dog stayed out on her own, for most of the time. We covered many topics of conversation about her life and about upcoming plans for the weekend after Thanksgiving with some of their older brother Ken’s family.

I did complete the send for organization for 3 upcoming days of our music group events and I telephoned the ones without an email connection.

Now John’s fixing supper, and I’m finalizing the blog for him to edit and get into WordPress. I found 2 errors in last week’s blog on Nov. 9, which I noted above at the very beginning of this blog. If you followed the 2nd and 3rd videos for patriotic things, they were not correctly notated. That all has now been fixed.